The head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, has announced this week that she will step down from her position. The move comes after Jackson has fought hard against Washington politicians and lobbyists.

Jackson fought significant pushback from Republican lawmakers opposed to her efforts to fight climate change reports Reuters. She was also brought in front of Congress for multiple hearings during her tenure, and even fought dissension within the EPA.

President Obama thanked Jackson for her service and praised her work on several causes including assistance in setting up new fuel economy standards in the United States.

"Under her leadership, the EPA has taken sensible and important steps to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink," Obama said in a statement.

Jackson said in a statement she was "confident the (EPA) ship is sailing in the right direction."

Jackson is expected to step down from her cabinet position after President Obama delivers his State of the Union address in early 2013.

Huh? I think you have failed at basic acronyms. EPA stands for the Environmental Protection Agency. It is not their job to serve the interests of the citizens of the U.S., it's their job to do what best serves the environment.

That includes supporting/endorsing/enforcing policies that may inconvenience and place a financial burden on some U.S. citizens. The EPA isn't concerned with those sorts of problems, nor should it be. The environment is more important than your perceived "right" to drive a gas-guzzling 6-MPG SUV just because you happen to want to, or automakers' perceived "right" to produce and sell such vehicles.

If you think people should matter more than the environment, you really need to go and take a long hard look at the facts. We've only got one environment, and if we ruin it for stupid reasons we can't just go out and get another one.

quote: Huh? I think you have failed at basic acronyms. EPA stands for the Environmental Protection Agency. It is not their job to serve the interests of the citizens of the U.S., it's their job to do what best serves the environment.

You really need to stop smoking whatever it is you are. The ONLY purpose of ANY US government agency is to serve the citizens. They work for us, you know people. Pull your head out of your fundamentalist environmental ideology and recognize there are those who don't agree with your twisted view. You have the right to have such a view but not the right to force said view down other's throats. If you cannot convince me of the value or validity of your argument, your argument is lacking... So far I am not convinced.

quote: The ONLY purpose of ANY US government agency is to serve the citizens.

I see, so the military, the IRS, the DHS with its warrantless wiretapping and domestic spying, and the TSA with its bumbling incompetence are all just there to serve the whims of U.S. citizens? And I'm the one that's smoking something?

But there's a grain of truth in your nonsense; at the time these agencies were CREATED, it was done to serve the will of the electorate. So at some point, yes, citizens recognized that protecting the environment was important and the EPA was born. But once created, these organizations exist to serve the purpose for which they were created, not to serve the people who created them.

If the government buys a shovel and creates an agency to dig holes using the shovel, then that agency exists to dig holes. It doesn't exist so that Joe Citizen can come up and say "hey can I borrow the shovel, I've got some muskrats that I need to whack". And the EPA doesn't exist so that people can say "hey your environmental protections are inconvenient to me, get rid of them", it exists to protect the environment.

quote: If you cannot convince me of the value or validity of your argument, your argument is lacking... So far I am not convinced.

Well then, I'm glad the world has you to serve as sole arbiter of what does and does not count as a valid argument. That should clear up a whole lot of messes.

And it's a dark day indeed when having common sense and not being stupid enough to believe that almost every scientist everywhere is part of some giant conspiracy to extort research grants is considered a "fundamentalist ideology".